Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Spring Cleaning {part one}

I am in full swing of spring cleaning mode in my apartment. However, I will save you all the pain of seeing every single cleaning task that I do and pick just a few that have a nice before and after result. Today's focus happened to be the kitchen.
This is the cabinet above our sink. Storing coffee cups, shaker bottles, and water bottles seems like a waste of cupboard space, but we needed to keep them easily accessible.

Here's what it looked like when I started. A mega disaster. Lids everywhere. Some cups had their lid set on top nicely, and some had a lid nowhere in sight.

So I took everything out and gave it a quick wipe down with an antibacterial wipe and tossed all the lids into an extra basket that I had floating around. I debated on setting the lids on the coffee cups, but went with the basket since in all actuality, this will work better for the long run.

Everything gets put back in nice, neat rows. Another benefit of this way, is coffee cups can be stacked. I just didn't have to stack them at this point since a few cups were in the dishwasher.

Next I have the fridge a good cleaning. Obviously this has to happen more than just during spring cleaning time. I take everything out and wipe down the entire fridge with my favorite Method Kitchen Anti-bac spray. (including the wire racks) This is also a good time to check expiration dates on condiments and anything else lurking in the back of the fridge. I switched to the basket system a while ago, and I am still loving it. Super handy for packing my lunches in my morning rush.

ignore that foot. the door refused to stay open long enough for me to snap a photo.

And for my most favorite part. The nasty dip pans on my stove. They were DISGUSTING!! And since I have never had an electric stove before I had to double check with the next door neighbor/manager if I could just yank those coils out. I didn't want to be the girl that breaks the stove trying to clean it.

Take a peek at these nasty things!

Opened up the stove top so that could get a good cleaning too. Though it wasn't near as bad as the drip pans. And to think my food was close to these things! ICK.

Oh hey, don't forget to clean between the stove and countertop. That crack gets pretty packed full of nastyness too!

My neighbor was kind enough to send some cleaning essentials back with me. She assured me this was the best way to get these babies clean. Soft scrub and a trusty green scratchy pad.

You just give everything a wipe down with a wet cloth first. Then the scratchy pad with the soft scrub on it. Then let it sit for a minute and come back and wipe it clean. If only it was that easy for the drip pans too. Those took some serious scrubbing.

And wipe it off again, and it looks much better!

I did the same thing to the top of the stove. There was just a little ring where the edges of the drip pan sits that you can't get to with just a normal wipe down. Sorry I forgot a before picture.

I couldn't get my drip pans to look brand new again but they sure look a lot better than where I started.

I feel much better about cooking on this next time. I also cleaned the underside of the vent above the stove. That tends to get a little grease build up too. So it's good to give that a quick wipe down every time you clean your stove.

And a little before and after just for the impact.

So much better!

Here's the progress I've made on my spring cleaning checklist in the kitchen.

yep, that's a half X on clean out refrigerator and freezer. I have only done the fridge and not the freezer yet. Thinking about ordering containers from the container store to corral everything in our teeny freezer???? I think I'm making pretty good progress. I don't usually get more than an hour at a time to work on it my cleaning endeavors. So I just try to get as much done as I can.